


Goal (for now)

by Sakilya



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakilya/pseuds/Sakilya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>03:58, Mutsuki wakes up in the CCG, during a way overtime work-night with the Suzuya squad, and thinks about his current place in life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goal (for now)

His neck hurt. Mutsuki’s shoulder jumped as he attempted to shift, movements only succeeding to make him lose balance and topple over the edge of the bare couch. He fell to the floor with little grace, a curse slipping through his clenched teeth. He could barely see the outline of the furniture, the light from a nearby building that slipped in through the windows only clearly lit up the square of tables nearest it. He had barely missed crashing the lower table right in front of the couch.

It took a few moments for his eyes to get used to the darkness, and yet another few seconds as he realized he was seeing with both eyes. Mutsuki felt around in his nearby area after his eyepatch. While he didn’t find anything made out of cloth, his hand closed around his phone. It had been hiding underneath the couch, just barely, just so that he hadn’t fallen right onto it as he had fallen off.

Finding the correct side to turn it on, Mutsuki squinted against the blue light and bright white numbers appearing first. 03:58. He couldn’t even remember when he’d fallen asleep, only an endless amount of coffee and that Suzuya had made him run down the hallways a few times to keep himself awake. With another slide on the screen the phone opened up fully. There were no new messages, and for reasons that Mutsuki didn’t want to dig deep into, he felt a tingle of melancholia cross his chest. His throat felt tight and he reached up to undo his tie, just to realize that that too, just as his eyepatch, was gone. The knot in his throat stayed. He knew he shouldn’t, but scarcely before he could blink, he’d opened up the app and was scrolling down Saiko’s blog. She had been online six hours ago.

[Can’t move my arms bc of Uriuri~~ but look at my growing biceps]

[@myrose sry, no pics of the bbychicks]

[@little_prince haven’t had time to play it noooooope~ i’m a busy mom now]

[Kohai is still trying to beat me……… H-chan has a long way to go……]

[it’s quiet]

Mutsuki closed the app. He stared at his phone for a moment more, thumb dragging across the screen, before shutting it off once more and putting it in his pocket. One of his hands found the couch, and the other the table. He was a bit off balance as he pushed himself up from the floor, back cracking as he stretched. The couch, bare and flat as it were, looked tempting but there were better things to do once he was awake. His skin felt dirty, and his chest had started to ache.

A few shapes around the room started to take form, the first one being Mikage leaning against the wall below the windows. Suzuya was asleep in a chair at the table, his head in his arms and his arms on top of a stack of piles. The other couch of the room had been taken by Tamaki, tightly holding a pillow to his body, his hair somehow still perfect. Nakurai was nowhere to be seen in the room, but Mutsuki were sure he would show up the moment Suzuya woke up.

He didn’t notice Hanbee until he was almost out of the room. It made Tooru jump, as he looked like something between a saint and something straight out of a horror-movie, long hair falling down over his face and back straight in his chair, completely still. In the darkness it almost looked like he wasn’t alive.

“Tooru…” a sleepy voice to his right made a skip in his steps. Suzuya hadn’t moved, nor had he opened his eyes. It wasn’t possible to see if he was actually awake. “Candy… in the…” He murmured, burrowing his head further down into the pile of files.

“I’ll get you some from the vending-machine,” He promised, better safe than sorry, watching Suzuya settle down again with a hum. Tooru suddenly had the impulse of touching Suzuya’s hair, but doing so felt like he would take a step into a sphere he wasn’t allowed into. He cracked the door open instead and slipped out into the corridor.

The halls were sparsely lit, only blinking to life as he walked through them. The air-conditioning was still running, a soft humming that vibrated through the walls. Summer was near, and even the nights could get hot. Near the bathroom the lights were already on, and he could hear the water running from inside, the faucet being turned off and steps nearing the door. Mutsuki stopped, staying politely to the side as the door swung open. The investigator yawned as he stepped outside, and startled when he spotted Mutsuki. For a moment, the alarmed expression didn’t disappear, the man seemed on high-alert and his hand had flown to his side, as if grasping after something he didn’t have.

“Good morning.” Tooru nodded his head at the investigator. Mutsuki had worked with this man. He couldn’t grasp the name from anywhere in his memory, nor his rank. Had they even been properly introduced? Mutsuki couldn’t remember. He kept his speech polite just in case. “Sorry for startling you.”

“Oh. Eyepatch. It’s just you.” The man had snapped back into a more relaxed stance, but his hand was still fidgeting at the side. “You’re working late too?”

“Yes, I’m working with Suzuya’s squad now, we’re in the middle of research.” He was probably oversharing, but the man nodded along, finally finding something to do with his hand as he scratched the back of his head.

“Well,” The man seemed to have a hard time deciding whether to stare at Mutsuki face or look away. It has just been a couple of days, Mutsuki remembered now, and one of his observance missions. He didn’t think he had talked to anyone else than the squad-leader, even stayed a bit away during the mission itself to keep an eye out for enemies, taking said enemies down before they could get to the main group. This investigator had been an ukaku-user. Mutsuki still couldn’t remember his name. “I’d better get back to work…”

“Have a nice morning.” Mutsuki said as the man headed away, and got some tired mumbling in response.

A sigh slipped out from his lips as he stepped into the empty bathroom. There were no one there, but Tooru stepped into one of the empty stalls anyway, locking the door. He removed his jacket and shirt, making a grimace after smelling them and then pulled his binder off. It made breathing easier, and after having stretched, cracking his back a few times he felt lighter as he put everything back on.

He walked up to the row of mirrors, turning a faucet on and splashing his face with the cold water. It felt good to wash the last pieces of sleep from his mind, even as the tips of his hairs got wet and stuck along his cheeks. It was starting to get a little bit too long for his liking, but, he had had neither time to go to a salon nor someone to do it for him.

Mutsuki splashed his face again, looking at himself in the mirror. His eyes were a bit droopy still, but that was nothing he could do anything about.

His eyes…

His eyepatch. He had forgotten his eyepatch.

Suddenly the reaction outside made a little bit more sense. Tooru lifted one of his hands up, covering his kakugan. He imagined taking his hand down, and his eye would look like it once had been. Back when it all had started, he had practiced doing this in front of the mirror over and over again. With his hand in front of his eyes, he had willed it to return, tried to feel as if there has been a film over his eye and drag it away. It had never worked, and now when he lowered his hand, he couldn’t say he had tried very hard. His eye looked normal. His black and red eye looked normal.

Tooru covered his human eye.

The door opened. Mutsuki took a step back, dropping his hand down as Suzuya slid into the room.

“You took your time,” He said, coming up next to Mutsuki and looking into the mirror. He dragged his fingers over the stitches, and made a grimace at his reflection. “Nakarai returned from the archives.”

“Sorry, special-class Suzuya.” Mutsuki apologized, and Suzuya looked at him, gazing upon his face.

“Also, you forgot this.” Suzuya dug something from his pockets and held it up as Mutsuki made to grab it. He lifted it up, prepare to cover up his eye when the cloth unravelled and spilled out from his hand.

It was his tie. Mutsuki couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. For a moment Suzuya looked confused, as if he didn’t understand what was so funny, but then the expression slipped into a smile and Suzuya took the tie back. Mutsuki stood still as Suzuya reached around and tied it around his neck with nimble fingers.

“ _Investigators_ have to look proper, you know.” Suzuya said, mimicking a voice that Mutsuki couldn’t place. Suzuya finishing the knot with a pull. It wasn’t perfect, and Mutsuki didn’t have a single doubt that Suzuya knew it and knew how to fix it if he wanted to. “Is there something wrong, Tooru?”

He felt better with the tie. Somehow, the constricting piece of clothing has dispatched the feeling of anxiety that had been haunting him since he woke up. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. If it was good enough for Suzuya. “No, sir. I was just wondering if you had my eyepatch too.”

“Yep. It’s back in the room somewhere.” Suzuya replied, as he took hold of Mutsuki’s arm and started to lead him out of the bathroom. “But! You won’t get it until we’ve nailed down the suspects’ base of operation. It’s your punishment for falling asleep before I did.”

Maybe it was because he hadn’t got enough sleep, and his body refused to believe he needed to be sharp for many hours after this, but the words slipped out anyway, sounding muted by the empty hallway.

“You don’t mind?”

Suzuya glanced at his face, met his eye. “You’re an investigator, right?” He crouched down, having found the vending-machine and studied the snacks inside. “Then it doesn’t matter.”

Mutsuki’s mouth wanted to say more, say something even more horrible. This time, his mind caught up and made him bite back the confession left soundless on his tongue. _Would you mind, if you knew I had eaten our fallen allies?_

He jumped as a bar of chocolate hit the bottom of the machine, and Suzuya fished it out, finding his eyes in the hazy reflection. “There was someone, who would always tell me to act a certain way. Be a better person, act better. Does that seem annoying? It was, in the beginning.” He rose up, and started walking down the hallway again. Mutsuki blinked, and fell into step.

Suzuya was quiet for a moment, and Mutsuki didn’t find anything to say. The silence itself was telling, there were no space for words. They walked slowly, nowhere the pace Mutsuki with experience knew that Suzuya could get up to if they were in a hurry. He waited. Suzuya took a breath like a sigh, a faint smile gracing his features.

“He was also the only one that actually _believed_ I could do better. No matter what I had done before, no matter what I still did. It wasn’t like he didn’t care, or didn’t know about my past. I guess he saw it in perspective, there was always one goal after another laid out that he made possible to grab.” Suzuya put a finger in Mutsuki’s face, almost making him walk straight into it. “So! For whatever it is you don’t want to open your mouth and tell me. It’s fine. Let’s just finish this case.”

He must have looked shocked, but Suzuya looked serious. It wasn’t as if he frowned or looked angry, but he looked earnest, and kept the finger up, so close to Mutsuki’s mouth. They didn’t move.

“Yes sir.” Mutsuki finally answered, and jerked back as Suzuya poked his nose, the motion quick and light that he almost missed it.

Suzuya threw the door open, to the room, a loud “Good Morning!” being met by the sound of scrambling and after a few seconds four voices answering, albeit three of them rather slurred. As Mutsuki followed inside and a second, scattered chorus of “Morning, Tooru!” met him.

His skin was prickling.

He would have to leave. Tooru knew he was going to be transferred into a new squad in less than two weeks, but for some reason that didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. Maybe he could even schedule a meeting with Saiko and Urie after that mission. Maybe have lunch with the new quinx he had barely seen. He filed it away in his mind.

What was important now, was getting his eyepatch back before they headed out for lunch.

“Good morning.”


End file.
